Rip The Music

The
"Restless, Restless" Story

It's been called the worse
song of all time and thanks to a contest on the Howard Stern show, it is
also the most covered songs of all time with close to 1000 cover
versions. The song is called "Restless, Restless" and this is it's
story.

Tom and I first met in 1982 when we both
worked for WNBC radio. We initially bonded over our discovery of the massive and legendary NBC music library
at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York. In the pre internet days and pre
Virgin super store days, the NBC library was probably the greatest
collection of music in one place. It's wasn't long before Tom
and I discovered that we were musical mirror images of each other.
While WNBC was playing an endless loop of early 80's Top 40 AM radio
(think Barry Manilow, Bee Gees, Shena Easton) Tom and I decided we could
write songs that were, at the very least, just as commercial as what was
playing on the radio. It helped that we shared a love for pretty much
all genres of music. At the time, we were heavy into the Punk Rock/New
Wave evolution but we also were heavy into classic performers like
Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles and Elton John. We decided that our handicap
(the fact that we can't really sing or play an instrument) wasn't going
to get in the way. We knew we were great at lyrics, melody and that we
had a strong sense of what was commercial. It sounds a little shallow
but we just wanted to write hit songs. It wasn't about art or really
expressing our own personal views. We pretty much shared stories on our
failed relationships over the years (the best foundation for any
songwriter) and channeled it into writing songs. The first song we wrote
was called "Headlines, Headlines" and it was written mainly as an
exercise ('let's write a song about a failed relationship using a
newspaper metaphor'). "Restless, Restless" was
the second song we ever wrote together. It was a perfect collaboration
because Tom helped articulate my feelings about a really bad breakup
with my girlfriend at the time. As with all of our songs, we made a
quick demo with us singing the song. We really didn't have a melody
worked out when we sang it but we wanted to see if the lyrics flowed
together. The song was very much of it's time (New Wave, CBGB, purple
dresses and dancing shoes) so the melody had a slightly new wave "jerk"
to it. While Tom and I pursed our careers (me in television and Tom in
radio) we continued to write songs together. Thanks to our relationship
with the great Howard Stern, he mentioned on the air one morning, to
millions of listeners, that Tom and I were songwriters. Curious as to
what our songs would sound like, he asked us to bring in a demo. The
"Restless, Restless" cassette had survived over 20 years and we felt
that it was a pretty good representation of our passion for music so we
handed it over. Before long, Howard had declared it one of the worse
songs of all time. He would play the demo almost every day for several
weeks. This eventually lead to the "Restless, Restless" song
contest on his show where people were encouraged to cover the song any
way they wanted as long as they didn't change the lyrics. There was a
cash prize of $5,000 and close to a thousand cover versions were
submitted. Tom and I had no idea what to expect. We knew that Howard's
audience were a pretty hip, smart bunch of people but nothing prepared
us for what we were about to hear. We expected a bunch of novelty
versions with hopefully a few gems but it was a complete reversal. The
few novelty once we received were pretty damn funny but there was a high
ratio of good to great covers that covered the history of modern music.
There were rap versions, hard rock, soft rock, jazz and blues versions.
There were some celebrity versions (Robert Goulet and William Shatner!)
as well as techno and disco. Tom and I were so inspired by the whole
thing that we actually put a band together of some incredibly talented
musicians, (the Crucial Heads) and covered our own song. Hearing what
all of these incredibly talented musicians were able to to with the song
was beyond words. Howard and his staff eventually went through all the
submissions and picked the top three. Tom and I were judges along with
Harvey Leeds from Epic Records and John Titta from Warner Chappel Music.
The three finalists were Kevin Remuck, a young singer songwriter from
Boston who blew everyone away with his beautiful Country/Soul cover,Robert
Goulet, perhaps best known for originating the role of Sir
Lancelot on Broadway in Camelot and Jeff Stillman who did a nice Honky
Tonk/Country styled version. Howard was kind enough to indulge us and
played some of the other great versions that had been submitted which
was an obvious kick for some of these bands. Kevin Remuck was the hands
down winner and the whole thing aired on the E Entertainment cable
network [check the listings for reruns]. Kevin's beautiful version is
available for digital download at RealRhapsody. We hope to eventually host every singe
version of the most covered song of 2004! In the meantime, check out the
"Restless,
Restless" jukebox for links
to some of the versions. We encourage you to also visit the various
bands websites. trust us, there some incredible to be heard out there.Thanks
to the exposure of the song on the Howard Stern show, Tom and I have met
an incredible group of musicians throughout the country. We've made some
great friends with some of the guys already (Kevin Remuck, Eric Garner,
Bump, and Navar) and we hope to meet more of you. It also
encouraged us to set up this web site to share our music (both original
and the music of others that we love) with the world via the internet.
Keep checking back the jukebox for more updates.